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Discipline Priest Healing Mythic+ Tips in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Last updated on Aug 11, 2018 at 09:20 by Mend 26 comments

Table of Contents

General Information

On this page, you will various tips and pieces of advice for clearing high Mythic+ content with your Discipline Priest.

The other pages of our Discipline Priest guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author

This guide is written and maintained by Mend, admin and editor at Focused Will (join them on Discord or read their Blog for healing Priests) and is reviewed by the staff at Focused Will. You can follow Mend on Twitter or Twitch.

1. Discipline Priest in Mythic+

Discipline Priests have received several changes that make the spec more interesting in dungeons. Our damage output, while still providing healing, is second to none. With dungeon design straying away from several one-shot mechanics, Discipline is now better suited to playing in a competitive Mythic+ setting.

1.1. Discipline Priest Mythic+ Rotation

Discipline's healing rotation remains the same for Normal, Heroic, and Mythic dungeons. For more information about the Discipline Priest healing rotation, refer back to the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

1.2. Discipline Priest Utility

Discipline Priests have a unique toolkit that can allow us to heal, while also providing a substantial amount of damage. For Mythic+, added damage is a strong factor when considering any healer and Discipline does not need to sacrifice much healing to contribute damage, making us a very enticing choice for pushing Mythic+ keys. In addition to the damage we provide while healing, we also bring several damage reduction cooldowns, good personal cooldowns, and the ability to dispel enemies.

  • Desperate Prayer Icon Desperate Prayer is a personal cooldown that increases your health by 25% and also heals you for that amount. This cooldown is ideal to use in a pinch and has a relatively short cooldown.
  • Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression is a 40% damage reduction cooldown that can, and should, be used proactively when possible. It can also be used reactively, specifically if you have the Moment of Repose Icon Moment of Repose Azerite trait. One situation to use this cooldown in would be when you can anticipate damage to prevent your tank from being 1-shot, such as by bosses on Tyrannical.
  • Power Word: Barrier Icon Power Word: Barrier provides you with a great group-wide damage reduction cooldown, provided people stand within it. Use this on high group damage in boss encounters or during trash.
  • Fade Icon Fade can provide a substantial absorb shield, assuming you have the Sanctum Icon Sanctum Azerite trait. This trait can turn your Fade into a personal cooldown, in addition to the threat removal mechanic it provides as baseline.
  • Dispel Magic Icon Dispel Magic allows you to dispel beneficial buffs from enemies. This is extremely useful in Battle for Azeroth dungeons, as a lot of mob packs in many of the dungeons tend to have some kind of buff that they cast on themselves. While this is more important in some dungeons compared to others, it is still very valuable to be able to do it.
  • Purify Icon Purify dispels all Magic and Disease effects from friendly targets.
  • Mass Dispel Icon Mass Dispel remains a really useful ability to have in our arsenal. Dispelling is very important in Battle for Azeroth, and Mass Dispel allows for both offensive and defensive dispels. The fact that you can dispel multiple enemies or friendly targets with just one global is situationally very strong, although Mass Dispel does have a fairly lengthy 45-second cooldown now.
  • Leap of Faith Icon Leap of Faith pulls a friendly party member towards you. It is not that useful generally, but can sometimes save someone.
  • Mind Control Icon Mind Control is good to deal with Bolstering Icon Bolstering if you really do not want a mob in the pack to get Bolstering stacks. While mobs are Mind Controlled, they can not get affected by Bolstering.
  • Psychic Scream Icon Psychic Scream fears up to 5 enemies close to you for 8 seconds, but damage can break this early. Psychic Scream is primarily used as an AoE interrupt in dungeons.
  • Shackle Undead Icon Shackle Undead is not entirely useless in Battle for Azeroth because there are a large amount of Undead mobs in some of the dungeons. You have the option to Crowd Control them as Discipline if needed.
  • Shining Force Icon Shining Force can be rather beneficial to deal with the Necrotic Icon Necrotic and Sanguine Icon Sanguine affixes, due to the requirement of knocking back and slowing enemies. You can find more on these affixes below.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Discipline Priests

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time.

Level Choices
15 Castigation ✘ Castigation Twist of Fate ? Twist of Fate Schism ✔ Schism
30 Body and Soul ✘ Body and Soul Masochism ? Masochism Angelic Feather ✔ Angelic Feather
45 Shield Discipline ✘ Shield Discipline Mindbender ? Mindbender Power Word: Solace ✔ Power Word: Solace
60 Psychic Voice ? Psychic Voice Dominant Mind ? Dominant Mind Shining Force ? Shining Force
75 Sins of the Many ✔ Sins of the Many Contrition ? Contrition Shadow Covenant ? Shadow Covenant
90 Purge the Wicked ? Purge the Wicked Divine Star ✔ Divine Star Halo ? Halo
100 Lenience ✔ Lenience Luminous Barrier ? Luminous Barrier Evangelism ✘ Evangelism

3. Trinkets

Trinket recommendations for Battle for Azeroth Mythic+ dungeons will be located here. Currently, we are unsure of any tuning that will take place between beta and launch for trinkets, thus we are uncomfortable making a recommendation. “Stat sticks” (trinkets providing a flat stat) will be valuable early on in the expansion. Also keep in mind that damage trinkets no longer provide Atonement Icon Atonement healing, but now do full damage, instead of a reduced 25% for Discipline Priests, which will have an impact on dungeons where damage is necessary.

4. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix is available instantly at level two and three, the second affix starts at level four, the third affix is enabled at level seven, and finally the seasonal affix is at level ten.

4.1. Tier One Affixes

Fortified Icon Fortified - Non-boss enemies have 20% more health and inflict up to 30% increased damage. Focus on helping provide damage during trash packs and try to learn which packs need your attention more than others. Certain enemies have buffs that need to be dispelled. You can use Mind Control Icon Mind Control for specific enemies to buff your allies. You could even talent into something like Dominant Mind Icon Dominant Mind to control an enemy without sacrificing your ability to heal. The goal with Fortified is to focus on as much crowd control as possible. Having healing cooldowns ready and available for trash packs will prove beneficial.

Tyrannical Icon Tyrannical - Boss enemies have 40% more health and inflict up to 15% increased damage. Discipline AoE is rather limited, but our single target damage is quite high. On most dungeon boss encounters, we will be able to focus heavy damage on the boss, while still healing our group. It is usually recommended to go for a more aggressive build, running Schism Icon Schism, Power Word: Solace Icon Power Word: Solace and Sins of the Many Icon Sins of the Many to maximize your damage and thus your healing. The importance of quickly killing bosses on Tyrannical is high, and Discipline brings quite a few tools to the table to help with that.

4.2. Tier Two Affixes

Bolstering Icon Bolstering - When any non-boss enemy dies, its death cry empowers nearby allies, increasing their maximum health and damage by 20%. This has a 30 yard range. There really is not much you can do to help besides switching targets to help damage higher health enemies. If you get 1-2 highly bolstered enemies, be ready to cast Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression or even Rapture Icon Rapture / Power Word: Barrier Icon Power Word: Barrier if it is needed.

Raging Icon Raging - Non-boss enemies enrage at 30% health remaining, dealing 100% increased damage until defeated. Conversely to Bolstering Icon Bolstering, you would want to help damage down specific enemies one at a time to avoid the increased damage done and reduce the healing required on your team. If for some reason the pack is AoE’d down and you have several low health enemies, be ready to use your cooldowns such as Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression, Rapture Icon Rapture or Power Word: Barrier Icon Power Word: Barrier to counter the damage.

Sanguine Icon Sanguine - When slain, non-boss enemies leave behind a lingering pool of ichor that heals their allies and damages players. The pools left on the ground have two specific issues that need to be dealt with. Firstly, and the most obvious, is your group members (specifically melee DPS) taking damage after killing an enemy; be ready to spot heal these players up quickly. Secondly, enemies that are casting might stand in these pools, which will heal them. It is highly recommended to talent into Shining Force Icon Shining Force for this affix to ensure that you can knock the enemies back out of the pools and reduce the additional time it takes to kill them.

Teeming Icon Teeming - Additional non-boss enemies are present throughout the dungeon. Extra crowd control might be needed depending on the other affixes (Fortified Icon Fortified makes this much harder to deal with). Depending on the additional enemies that are added, there may be more party-wide damage or single target damage, so be ready to adjust based on the circumstances.

Bursting Icon Bursting - When slain, non-boss enemies explode, causing all players to suffer 10% of their max health in damage over 4 sec (this effect stacks). Bursting Icon Bursting is likely one of the more difficult affixes to handle for a newer Discipline Priest. With a target, Bursting Icon Bursting stacks are rather manageable, however, issues usually arise when healing your party after several enemies have died and you have no more targets. Thankfully, we have several tools to deal with healing out of combat in Battle for Azeroth. Because of the way Mastery: Grace works, Power Word: Radiance Icon Power Word: Radiance should be the first spell you start off using followed by any of the following, as needed: Rapture Icon Rapture, Power Word: Barrier Icon Power Word: Barrier, Luminous Barrier Icon Luminous Barrier (if taken), defensive Penance Icon Penance (if talented into Contrition Icon Contrition) and casting Shadow Mend Icon Shadow Mend on single targets that require some spot healing.

4.3. Tier Three Affixes

Necrotic Icon Necrotic - All enemies' melee attacks apply a stacking blight that inflicts damage over time and reduces healing received. Healing your target after they get somewhere between 10-15 stacks of the debuff becomes nearly impossible. Each stack of the Necrotic Rot debuff accounts for 2% less healing taken. At 10-15 stacks, your healing is reduced by 20-30% and the effectiveness of healing versus working on helping the tank drop stacks swaps. Focus on DPSing to kill the enemy rather than trying to heal the tank. Keep in mind that your absorbs will be limited in effectiveness by this debuff, as well. Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression is helpful in preventing a death, since damage reductions are not impacted by this affix. Shining Force Icon Shining Force is extremely helpful in providing a knockback when the tank is attempting to drop the stacks of the debuff. Leap of Faith Icon Leap of Faith is worth considering to pull the tank away from the enemies, helping to drop his stacks. The good news is, Necrotic Rot stacks will drop automatically once you leave combat.

Skittish Icon Skittish - Enemies pay far less attention to threat generated by tanks. Because of threat dropping from the tank, it is important that you maintain a focus on specifically healing melee DPS in your group. Maintaining Atonement Icon Atonement on both your tank and the 1 or 2 melee DPS in the group is advised so that you can quickly provide increased spot healing (since Mastery: Grace Icon Mastery: Grace buffs your healing on targets with Atonement Icon Atonement).

Volcanic Icon Volcanic - While in combat, enemies periodically cause gouts of flame to erupt beneath the feet of distant players. This affix is fairly easy to avoid as a Discipline Priest, due to our ability to heal on the move. The issue you will run into here is when other players are getting hit frequently by the ability. Make sure to be ready to top off those who get hit quickly to avoid extra deaths.

Explosive Icon Explosive - While in combat, enemies periodically summon Explosive Orbs that will detonate if not destroyed. We can actually help quite a bit with this affix, given our ability to provide damage. If you are running Power Word: Solace Icon Power Word: Solace, you can help kill the orb quickly with an instant cast ability. It is recommended to keep an eye out for these orbs and break away from healing to help destroy them, if it is needed.

Quaking Icon Quaking - Periodically, all players emit a shockwave, inflicting damage and interrupting nearby allies. This affix can be somewhat annoying due to the spread requirement and interrupt on your casts. Be sure to not be casting when this ability finishes to avoid being spell locked. If players are stacked when this goes off, you may have to follow up with some quick healing to top off the group.

Grievous Icon Grievous - When injured below 90% health, players will suffer increasing damage over time until healed above 90% health. Grievous is definitely one of, if not the hardest affix for Discipline to handle, but it is not impossible. The lack of an out of combat burst heal can make topping players off who have high stacks of this debuff rather difficult, especially in higher keys, where damage during combat is higher. Similar to the issues with Bursting, when we exit combat and no longer have targets to attack, it is much harder for us to top everyone off. The best method to handle this affix is to focus on keeping people topped off in combat by keeping up as many Atonement Icon Atonements as possible, while still dealing damage. Doing this will prevent you from being in too big of a hole when you exit combat and allow you to top people off. If you get in a situation where you have multiple people with high stacks of Grievous and are struggling to top them off, be sure to use Rapture Icon Rapture and Power Word: Barrier Icon Power Word: Barrier to mitigate some of the damage and help you recover. Talenting into Shadow Covenant Icon Shadow Covenant may also seem to be worth considering, however, you will sacrifice damage in the process of doing so (by not being talented into Sins of the Many Icon Sins of the Many) and could also make healing those players up even harder due to the healing absorb left over by Shadow Covenant Icon Shadow Covenant.

4.4. Seasonal Affix

Infested Icon Infested is the seasonal affix for the launch of Battle for Azeroth. Enemies afflicted with the Infested debuff will be scattered throughout each dungeon once you reach key level ten. These mobs will heal enemies around them and, when slain, will spawn two Spawn of G'huun that will attempt to infest remaining enemies.

Discipline being strong in single target damage means we can help focus down the infected enemies and Spawns of G’huun. The Spawn of G’huun can be crowd controlled, meaning we should be able to use a Shining Force Icon Shining Force to help knock it back from other enemies and provide a slow, or use Psychic Scream Icon Psychic Scream to fear them.

5. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

There are three Discipline Priest-specific traits that are decently strong for Mythic+ and stand out compared to the rest, as well as 2 traits not specific to the spec.

  1. Gift of Forgiveness Icon Gift of Forgiveness increases the damage of your Smite Icon Smite if you have at least 3 Atonement Icon Atonements active. Because you will normally have at least 3 Atonements out in both dungeons and raids, and it providing a rather substantial amount of damage increase to Smite, this trait is rather valuable.
  2. Enduring Luminescence Icon Enduring Luminescence buffs Power Word: Radiance Icon Power Word: Radiance to provide additional healing, as well as increasing the duration of your resulting Atonement Icon Atonements to 70% of their normal duration (up from 60%). This trait may fare well on certain encounters over others, but it is definitely a recommended choice.
  3. Moment of Repose Icon Moment of Repose turns your Pain Suppression Icon Pain Suppression into a very powerful heal that can help top off a tank, or even save them from dying. Consider using this trait for dungeon content early in the expansion and when pushing Mythic+ keys.
  4. Blood Rite Icon Blood Rite causes your spells to have a chance to increase your Haste for 15 seconds. Killing enemies refreshes this effect.
  5. Unstable Catalyst Icon Unstable Catalyst causes your spells and abilities to have a chance to create a zone standing in which increases your primary stat.
⋘Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
Common and Worst Mistakes⋙

6. ChangeLog

  • 11 Aug. 2018: Added page.
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